Character Quotes
Anyone else on this page has about a third as many entries as Shakespeare. Next come Pope, Milton, James Russell Lowell and Goethe. The sentence worth reading in context is Emerson’s, from The American Scholar (1837): character is higher than intellect, and a great soul will be strong to live as well as strong to think.
Shaw, in Man and Superman (1903), is here for a remark about marriage and morality, which shows how loosely the page’s topic is applied.
Three entries are flagged. Two sayings credited to the Roman mime-writer Publilius Syrus, one about character deciding every man’s fortune and one about doing nothing at once both hastily and prudently, are disputed. A passage credited to Joseph Addison, about imperfection being what complains of the imperfect, is marked misattributed.
Genteel in personage,
Conduct, and equipage;
Noble by heritage,
Generous and free.
When I'm not thank'd at all, I'm thank'd enough,
I've done my duty, and I've done no more.
A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself.
And one man is as good as another—and a great dale betther, as the Irish philosopher said.
The relationship between the individual and God, the God-relationship, is the conscience.
Thy sum of duty let two words contain,
(O may they graven in thy heart remain!)
Be humble and be just.
He possessed simplicity and liberality, qualities which beyond a certain limit lead to ruin.